Frustrated holiday makers who had their travel plans cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak have been told they must wait longer before getting their money back.
TUI customers had been expecting to receive a credit note refund for their cancelled holidays but have now been told the wait will be a further two weeks.
This is despite a promise made to some customers via email on April 17 that a refund code would be sent out on May 1.
The Mirror reports that TUI missed this deadline before announcing to angry customers that they would have to face the extra wait.
62-year-old Keith Tumilty was one of those who lost out when the airline cancelled almost 900,000 holidays.
He is still waiting to reclaim a full refund on a £2,053 seven-night break to Cape Verde for him and his wife Barbara, 61, which had been planned for April.
Keith, from Sutton Coldfield, received an email explaining that the reason for the delay was due to "improvements to our IT and booking systems".
The email said: "The 1 May deadline was set so that we could make improvements to our IT and booking systems, meaning your refund credit could be used as soon as you receive it.
"Unfortunately, it’s going to take a bit longer than we planned for us to send you your refund credit.
"Our team have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to get our systems ready for you, but we’re not going to be able to meet the deadline we set."
Keith said: "TUI are devious. They said they wouldn't issue a refund until I had a credit note voucher. I've flown 5 times in the past two years with TUI and I always thought they were a premier airline but this shows they're not.
"They promised me a credit note and I feel let down. It's absolutely dreadful what they're doing."
A TUI spokesperson said: "We’re really sorry that some customers have not received their refund credit as planned on 1 May 2020.
"Unfortunately this is taking longer than we initially planned but we’d like to assure customers that we are in the final stages of processing them and their refund credit will be with them by 15 May 2020.
"We’d like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding."
TUI offers a 'travel promise' to customers, allowing them extra flexibility in their bookings, but again this only relates to holidays before July 11.
When asked about holidaymakers approaching the deadline to pay the final balance of their holidays a TUI UK spokesperson said: "We appreciate that customers may be feeling apprehensive about paying their final balance. If customers don’t continue with payments unfortunately the holiday will be cancelled.
"We’d like to reassure customers that all of our package holidays are ATOL protected, so they can pay the balance with confidence.
"If the holiday has to be cancelled a refund credit incentive or cash refund option will be given."
